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The Cougars will host the Vandals of Idaho this weekend, after having a week off after the TCU loss. Hopefully the punt squad got some extra practice in this week, as even the Vandals would be hard to beat if you gifted them 21 points on egregious punt errors.

What we know about Idaho (2-7, 1-4 WAC)

Idaho broke a six game losing streak by beating the San Jose State Spartans last week. The 32-29 win was just the second of the season for the Vandals, whose only other win came in week 2 against North Dakota. The 2-7 record shouldn’t fool you though, the Vandals did take Virginia to overtime before losing 21-20, and they lost to Hawaii in another close one, 16-14. The Vandals average 195 passing yards and 96 rushing yards per game. They give up 28 points per game, while scoring only 21. This isn’t a good team. After all, they are at the bottom of the WAC standings, but they have been in some tough games, and the win over SJSU last week is their best of the season.

What we know about BYU (6-3)

I’ll go out on a limb and say that most fans thought the TCU game would be the one to say whether this BYU team was good or not. The sad thing about that loss was that our own errors gave the Horned Frogs so much extra help that it’s hard to say how the game comes out without them. Either way, BYU lost the game, and we are now left with only a road game at Hawaii and the TBD Armed Forces Bowl opponent to provide us with any sort of “how good are we?” moment. Win out, and you still end up 10-3 on the season, which looks great on paper.

Keys to the game

Special Teams. In “honor” of our opponent, I will forgo the usual keys to the game segment, and instead offer this handy little video for our punt team:

Prediction

BYU has shown that they are a good team, but nowhere near great. Idaho isn’t a good team, but they’re not Idaho State either. They are likely to put up a fight, but I think the Cougars will continue their domination of the lower-WAC with a 42-18 victory over the Vandals.